Marc's Core Tenets

1. Acknowledge that what you do ALWAYS matters!! Every thought, every action, every breath,
every minute, every repetition, every cent COUNTS!! Persistence, Persistence, Persistence!!

2. Daily momentum is key!! Commit to doing small core life tasks everyday. Doing one pushup
every day is more impactful than doing five pushups only on Saturday. Doing a little everyday,
allows for daily commitment to your personal awareness and growth.

3. Seek to be Self-Aware in Body, Mind & Spirit. We may have future goals and be very driven, but if we do not have the self awareness to know where we are today, it is very difficult to chart a course and plan towards our goals for tomorrow..

4.Be Prepared!!  All actions are for the purpose of preparing oneself and loved ones for a FULLY EXPERIENCED LIFE. This means taking necessary steps to educate oneself about life giving actions and preparations such as First Aid, self-defense, harvesting life sustaining food, and participating in positive behaviors and positive attitudes.
Prepare for disasters, but make sure the process of preparing yourself affects your life in a
way that improves it, even if the disaster never happens.

5. Experience, skills and knowledge trump gear and technology (in that order). Choose actions that increase your personal experiences on a multi-sensory level. Focus more time training with gear rather than purchasing it. If possible, seek to have experiences, rather than material items.

6. Seek to “Know”, rather than just “Know About “. Reading and watching videos about a task gives one knowledge, actually performing the task gains experience. One can understand the physics of riding a bicycle, but actually riding it is a more complete understanding. Do not assume that if you read the Boy Scout Manual on making fire, or watch YouTube videos on primitive fire building, you will be able to build a survival fire. There is a big difference between knowing and having the experience of actually collecting raw materials and physically building a fire, compared to knowing about/reading about/watching a video about making fire.

7. Earn your calories. Adjust daily intake based on weekly output. Understand that calories are a VERY general concept and are a measurement of energy. The body not only has energy considerations, but also has considerations with absorption, elimination, hormone function and storage. All of these are affected by environment, pollution, inflammation and hydration.

8. Move your body EVERYDAY!! Movement should encourage mentally healthy, life span
lengthening adaptations to our individual physiology. Physical training extremes that create 
limited ranges of motion, injury, or negative mental associations with exercise should be avoided.
Physical exercise should be driven by a yearning to be able to partake in everyday life activities,
without pain or discomfort. Physical exercise movements should be done with multiple goals: to contribute to proper life functionality and to promote varied movement and increased range of motion as we age.

9. Seek physical fitness and strength for the purpose of being useful-- F2BU= Fit To Be Useful. Being able to biceps curl 100 lbs. does not mean one will be able to carry a 50 lb child out of a swimming pool. Rather than physically training only for aesthetics (six-pack abs or rippling biceps), train with the goal of being functional, able to physically save yourself or others.

10. Know where your food comes from, and what inputs went into it!! Food is our fuel, but it is also an expression of ourselves, our culture and our value system. We can try to hold it at arms length, disassociating the physical nourishment from the mental associations, but to do so is to ignore a major part of ourselves and our evolution.
Understanding this, food and diet are as varied and diverse as the cultures, regions and ages of human history. Therefore we must accept that there is no singular IDEAL human diet. The human diet goes back at least 2 million years and there are a multitude of different expressions of variations of these diets based on region, culture and timeperiod alone! Suffice it to say, the majority of human cultures have subsisted as selective, regional omnivores. It is with this concept that I believe that no matter where you are on earth, your food should be consumed in it’s freshest, least adulterated state. Ideally with less 
than 7 levels of adulteration (adulteration meaning any manipulation done to the food source — organic/conventional agriculture/horticulture/animal husbandry practices, fertilization/cultivation, cutting/harvesting, refrigerating/transporting, irradiating/gassing, cooking, chewing, etc.) but, do the BEST you can. If this means growing food yourself, that is great, but for most people, choosing organic, local food reduces the levels of adulterations done to their food.

11. Water! Water! Water!! Hydration is a basic human need, and is necessary for all
other fundamental life processes.

12. When in doubt, go back to the basics. Re-learning and reviewing the fundamentals
(in physical exercise, meditation, balance, etc.)  can ALWAYS be done!

13. Seek Personal Independence & Personal Self Reliance. Better than storing resources,
learning how to generate them for yourself creates independence. Keeping a garden and
knowing how to grow your own food (even as little as 10% of what you use), reduces
your dependence on “the system”, guarantees that you know what goes into your food,
and is a marketable resource you can share/teach to others.

14. Humans are social animals. We cannot thrive, let alone survive without a community
of resources. Gone are the “Lone Wolf” fantasies; to survive and thrive, one must be a
part of a community where ideas and resources can be exchanged.

 

I am committed to promoting holistic health and wellness for myself and others. This is done
through focusing on elements of the self:

- Fitness/movement
- Holistic Nutrition through a self awareness feedback loop
- Consumption of local, whole, minimally processed foods
- The encouragement of individual Self Awareness
- The encouragement of Self Reliance
- The encouragement of community through healthy relationships with others
   and our environment.

 

My community promotes the development of a healthy, whole and complete Human Being
through these Core Tenets.  We encourage others who follow these principles to join our online
and live community (through our Forum) and contribute your experience, strength and hope.